Subtle. It was interesting to watch the crowd at the Grand National Roadster Show react to Scott Gillen’s ’32 three-window. Though it was parked in a piece of prime real estate—between Roy Brizio’s booth and the main stage—some people walked right by the car without giving it a second glance, drawn instead to some brightly painted, heavily plated, or wickedly slammed showpiece nearby.

2/14The heart of the matter: Don Ferguson took a late (’49-’53) flathead block and built Scott a half-inch stroker with a Scat crank, Scat H-beam rods, and Bullet blower cam. The Ardun overhead-valve conversion is stuffed full of air by the S.Co.T. blower, a big huffer built for Cad and Olds engines.

Those with a more discerning eye, however, would walk more slowly alongside the coupe and then stop, often pointing out one feature or another to a friend. Those in the know would then spend a lot of time circling the car, taking in the myriad details that make this Deuce such a stunner—if in a very understated way.

And that’s exactly what Scott was going for. “I’m not a fan of flash,” he says. “I wanted it to be subtle, a timeless approach to a ’32. I didn’t want it to look like a hot rod. I wanted it to look like a businessman’s coupe that he drove back and forth to work but then raced on the weekends.”

In Scott’s mind’s eye, said businessman was a successful one, so his DeLuxe coupe had to reflect that. No primer or gaudy colors here; the sheetmetal was tastefully rendered in a muted gray, nicely contrasting with the darker tone of the mohair inside. The roof is chopped, but not radically so; just about 31⁄2 inches. Rather than investing in a flashy set of magnesium or chrome wheels, the young executive went for traditional milk truck wheels, adding trim rings and Merc hubcaps for just a bit of shine.

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7/14The ’32 had the Pines Winterfront grille on it when Scott bought it, but the Brizio crew did a fantastic job restoring it. The headlights came from a mid-’30s Chevy; the front axle is an original Ford I-beam axle with a 4-inch drop.

Where subtlety goes right out the window is under the hood. The Deuce is flathead powered, but that flathead is equipped with a set of the much-lusted-after, hard-to-come-by Ardun cylinder heads, their hemispherical combustion chambers and overhead-valve breathing apparatus much improving the efficiency of Henry’s V-8. A S.Co.T. supercharger mounting twin Stromberg 97s ensures those chambers are getting as much air as possible.

(While many of the pieces used to build Scott’s Deuce are N.O.S. or original, the heads and blower are reproductions produced by Don Ferguson. We explore them in more depth in “Modern Ardun” on page 70.)

Now, the fact that Scott created a backstory to direct the build of his car might lead you to believe that this is a “new” ’32 Ford, built using reproduction sheetmetal and a contemporary frame. Nope. This is a real-deal ’32 that lived a hot rod life before Scott bought it. The top was chopped, the body wore primer, and it ran a flathead mated to a Zephyr transmission and Columbia two-speed rearend. Scott could have chosen to drive the car just as it was. “It drove like a dream,” he remembers.

8/14Sid Chavers stitched the timeless and tasteful mohair upholstery for the coupe. An original shift lever was hooked to the Tremec five-speed beneath the floor so there’d be no tip-off to the contemporary transmission.

10/14If the proportions of the steering wheel look a bit off, that’s because it’s been shrunk from 17 inches in diameter to 15. Dennis Crook of San Diego did the cut-down job.

Thing was, though, the car had been so long with its previous owner that it was known all around Southern California as “Mike’s car.” Which, after a while, didn’t sit well with Scott. “I didn’t build the car. It’s not mycar. I got tired of hearing that it was ‘Mike’s car.’ So I contacted Roy and talked to him about making some changes, making it higher end, more timeless.”

That would be longtime rod builder Roy Brizio who, at least initially, wasn’t sure he wanted to take on the job. Close inspection revealed some poor metalwork beneath the primer. “It was rough,” Roy recalls. “And I told Scott he had to make a decision. He could have chosen to keep the car as it was, a cool primered hot rod with a flathead and a two-speed Columbia in it. It had a great look to it. I told him if it were me, because it would take so much work, I’d keep this one as it is and build another car.”

Scott persisted, though, so Roy and his crew got to work. Dan Laughlin of Dan Laughlin Customs in Anderson, California, stripped the body, revealing metal that was salvageable—barely. Repairs were made, patch panels were welded in, but all of the gennie steel—the doors, decklid, grille shell, hood tops—was reused.

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12/14Because Scott wanted his Deuce to look like a modified stocker and not a hot rod, many of the car’s original trim pieces were left intact instead of being shaved, smoothed, or otherwise removed. The windshield still pops open, and there’s still a windshield wiper in place. Roy tells us that of all the metal repairs needed on the coupe, the windshield posts required the most attention and essentially had to be completely rebuilt.

So, too, was the car’s original frame. As can happen with these builds, Scott and Roy had several lengthy discussions about how the car should be built. One point of contention was the color of the framerails. Roy’s shop is known for its high-end street rods, and it’s his practice to paint a highboy’s frame to match its body color. Scott, however, wanted the car to look like our young exec had just taken off the fenders for a race, so the framerails should be black, as they came from the factory.

“We have done that only one other time in 10 years,” Roy says, “and that was when we built a copy of the American Graffiticoupe. But I have to say when all was said and done, he was right. It’s cool.”

The car’s rake also provided some lively conversation. “I wanted a minimal rake on the car,” Scott says. “I didn’t want it to look like a hot rod.”

“Scott wanted the car to sit high, almost flat,” Roy adds. “I had to explain to him that you can’t leave these cars flat, or they’ll look like they’re driving around with their nose in the air. You have to have some drop at the front.” Roy won that round, sort of. The car is nose-down, but it has about the least amount of rake we’ve seen.

As for the paint, Scott wanted a very traditional finish, a single-stage paint in which the shine comes from within the color itself, not a glossy clearcoat. He also wanted an authentic Ford color. Painter Eric Sanderson, who also works at Dan Laughlin Customs, experimented with different shades of gray before landing on a color called Dove gray, which Roy describes as “close to the color of the inside of an original ’32 Ford grille.”

13/14Using milk truck wheels was an old dry lakes racing trick. They were sturdy, fairly plentiful in the day, and because of the rear wheels’ tall diameter, they effectively lowered the axle ratio (numerically) for higher top speeds.

There isn’t a bit of chrome on the car. The shiny bits are, for the most part, nickel plated, as Scott feels its warmer hue better complements the gray paint. Sherm’s Plating in Sacramento did the nickel work; the few bright parts that aren’t nickel plated are stainless steel.

Don’t get the idea that Scott’s Deuce is more like a rolling sculpture than a car. The blown Ardun is a runner, joined to a Tremec five-speed transmission. Between the overdrive in the Tremec and the 3.70 gears in the quick-change, the engine turns a nice and easy 2,200 rpm at highway speeds, Roy says.

Scott and Roy took the car for a shakedown run outside of Roy’s South San Francisco shop, and they wound up putting nearly 90 miles on the car. “The car was tight,” Scott says. “No squeaks, rattles, or wind noise. Even Roy was shocked. You wouldn’t know the car is 82 years old. The doors shut like drums.” And the Ardun? “It runs fantastic. I love the sound of the blower.”

The Ardun mill in Scott’s ’32 is one of three he’s had Ferguson build for him. The second is in a ’33 coupe under construction, and the third will go into another of his projects, either a ’32 roadster or a sedan delivery. All of them, he says, will have a timeless, clean, stock-appearing look, like the three-window.

“Everybody has their own take on certain things,” he says. “I want to build something that I enjoy, that I like. But I also hope that people will notice that it’s super clean, even if it’s not to their taste. You don’t have to like a car, but I hope people will appreciate what was done to them.”

Given what we saw at GNRS, there were plenty of folks who did just that, ourselves included.

14/14A big ’n’ little tire/wheel combo of 18-inchers in back and 16s up front, coupled with a 4-inch dropped axle, helps give the Deuce its very subtle rake.